GovTech has a great article on how the newest EveryBlock city, Boston, is using technology to make its permitting process simpler and easier – including using an online tracking tool developed from the city’s hackathon last year.

If you’re looking to get more involved in your community, either through engagement, outreach, event planning, or simply connecting better with your neighbors, Open Plans has a great list (via Community Matters) on many different resources to help you do so. Check it out! Topics include sharing neighborhood knowledge, reporting potholes and other municipal problems, responding to surveys and giving input in other ways, and brainstorming ideas and reaching decisions.

It’s been a whirlwind December for the EveryBlock Team as we announced our newest city members. Last week, we brought EveryBlock back to Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, while also introducing a new addition—Medford, MA. Mayor Mike McGlynn of Medford hosted a press conference to mark the occasion.Click here for the full announcement.

And earlier this week, we re-launchedEveryBlock in Houston, complete with updated neighborhood and super neighborhood boundaries as well as Houston 311 data. Mayor Annise Parker and Councilman Ed Gonzalez helped us celebrate in City Hall.Read the full press release here.

We look forward to working with all of our EveryBlock communities to help drive community awareness, promote public data, and connect people to one another. Here’s to a great 2015!

This site is an online platform to provide opportunities for government and citizens to work together by connecting civic challenges to community problem-solvers. We believe the best way to tackle challenges that affect the community is with the community. By using a platform that allows members of the community to contribute from their own homes and on their own schedules, we believe that we will be able to engage a broader audience. And with this broader audience comes a broader range of ideas, solutions and participation. So, who should participate on this site? You! We want your ideas, your feedback, your comments and your point of view. Together, we can build a better community!

There’s a new dataset on Chicago’s open data portal – roadway construction moratoriums – streets that CANNOT have any construction on them. From the city:

Moratoriums are established by the Department of Transportation as a method of protecting reconstructed or repaved roadways within the boundaries of the city. By having access to this Moratorium list in advance, contractors or utilities with projects that require excavation of roadways can more effectively plan and review conflicts that will be encountered.

Philadelphia, one of the first dozen cities in the country to have an open data policy, is providing an example of what this reflection and planning can look like. The city’s Open Data Team recently released a Strategic Plan and Open Data Census, highlighting lessons from the first two years of its open data program and looking at how to make improvements going forward. Philadelphia’s efforts can help provide lessons to other places looking for ways to be more transparent about the process of opening up data.